A Business Process Perspective on Enterprise Content

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A B usiness Process Perspective on EnterpriseC ontent Management: Towards a Framework forO rganisational ChangeJ an vom BrockeU niversity of Liechtenstein, j an.vom.brocke@uni.liA lexander SimonsU niversity of Liechtenstein, alex ander.simons@hochschule.liA nne ClevenU niversity of St. Gallen, a nne.cleven@unisg.chF ollow this and additional works at:$

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rocke, Jan vom; Simons, Alexander; and Cleven, Anne, "A Business Process Perspective on Enterprise Content Management:

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A BUSINESS PROCESS PERSPECTIVE ON

ENTERPRISE CONTENT MANAGEMENT:

TOWARDS A FRAMEWORK FOR

ORGANISATIONAL CHANGE

vom Brocke, Jan, University of Liechtenstein, Fuerst-Franz-Josef-Strasse 21, 9490 Vaduz, Principality of Liechtenstein, jan.vom.brocke@hochschule.li Simons, Alexander, University of Liechtenstein, Fuerst-Franz-Josef-Strasse 21, 9490 Vaduz, Principality of Liechtenstein, alexander.simons@hochschule.li Cleven, Anne, University of St. Gallen, Mueller-Friedberg-Strasse 8, 9000 St. Gallen,

Switzerland, anne.cleven@unisg.ch

Abstract

The huge amount of content in today's work life brings up new challenges for Business Process Man- agement (BPM). The right content has to be provided at the right time, of the right quality, and at preferably low cost. So far, a remarkable number of software products have been developed for the management of enterprise content. However, there is still a significant lack of knowledge on how to

efficiently make use of these systems in a specific organisational context. With this paper, we present a

framework, taking a business process perspective on Enterprise Content Management (ECM). Within the framework, different types of content are identified that are relevant in regard to the business processes of a company. For each type of content blueprints are developed that describe how to make use of specific services of ECM systems. In order to implement organisational change, methodical support is provided on how to embed the blueprints into the business processes of a company. Keywords: Business Processes, Business Process Management (BPM), Enterprise Content Manage- ment (ECM), Framework, Organisational Change

1 INTRODUCTION

In the course of daily business, companies create enormous volumes of content. Enterprise Content Management (ECM) is an emerging field in Information Systems (IS) research dealing with strategies, processes, skills, and technologies providing the means for administering content (Smith and McKeen

2003, p. 1). Acting as an important instrument for an effective knowledge management (Davenport

and Prusak 2000), ECM enhances content availability and positively affects an organisation's business

processs performance (Reimer 2002, p. 17). The fact that the boundaries between BPM and ECM are becoming increasingly blurred in practice (Chambers 2007, p. 36) shows the necessity for guidelines on how to integrate both approaches. How- ever, little academic work has been carried out so far on implementing ECM within BPM research. At the same time, a business process perspective has not been established yet in the field of ECM. As a

result, there is still uncertainty on how to realise the potentials of organisational change by implement-

ing ECM. With this work, we present a process-driven implementation framework for ECM. The framework is

inspired by the idea of embedding reference processes ("blueprints") within an organisation's business

process structure. As these blueprints serve as guidelines on how to implement ECM, the framework is

referred to as "ECM-Blueprinting". Fields of application offering great potentials for organisational

change through ECM are identified by business processes specification and analysis. Additionally, the

potentials of organisational change are assessed by profitability analysis. According to a design science approach (Hevner et al. 2004; Simon 1996), we first analyse previous work in the field of ECM (section 2) and then we introduce an established framework for ECM re- search which has been applied within the development of ECM-Blueprinting (section 3.1). As our work is based on the perception that an ECM implementation has to be aligned with a company's business processes, we refer to the IT-Business-Alignment approach serving as theoretical foundation

(section 3.2). We then introduce ECM-Blueprinting (section 4) and present the first results of its de-

ployment in a real-life business context to illustrate its practical applicability (section 5). Subse-

quently, we discuss our findings (section 6). We identify limitations of the framework and reflect on

the current stage of our research. We conclude with a short summary and give an outlook on future work (section 7).

2 RELATED WORK

The ECM Association (AIIM) defines ECM as "technologies used to capture, manage, store, preserve and deliver content [...]" (www.aiim.org). However, ECM exceeds technological aspects alone and furthermore captures strategies, approaches and methods ensuring a suitable enterprise-wide content- rationing (Smith and McKeen 2003, p. 1). Providing means to enhance content quality and consistency

and to reduce content-related costs (Rockley et al. 2003, p. 14), an integrated ECM offers great poten-

tials to raise an organisation's business process efficiency (Reimer 2002, p. 17). Moreover, as ECM

addresses issues of compliance (e.g. archiving times) (O'Callaghan and Smits 2005), it contributes to

the improvement of business process effectiveness. Despite the evident benefits ECM may exhibit and though it has been stated that ECM is an important

gained any scientific interest up until now. An in-depth examination of existing contributions to ECM

research indicates that previous work mainly focuses on one of the following three fields: technology,

strategy, or implementation. A business process perspective offering guidelines and decision support for organisational change is widely neglected. Technology-related publications dealing with ECM and associated disciplines like Records Management, Document Management or Web Content Manage- ment (cf. e. g. McKeever 2003; Bronwing and Lowndes 2001) represent the biggest proportion of pub- lications. For example, Reimer (2002) especially focuses on the structure and functions of ECM sys-

tems. Within his work, the business process perspective is only reverted to when estimating the impact

of ECM on business process efficiency. Further approaches deal with ECM strategy development. Smith and McKeen (2003) focus on defining relevant terms and concepts for ECM. O'Callaghan and Smits (2005) distinguish ECM from related approaches and present a framework for ECM strategy development pointing out the need for decision support. However, neither of the two reports consider

the necessity of aligning ECM with business processes. Rockley et al. (2003) present an overall guide-

line for the development of a unified content strategy. Focussing on content collaboration, they also

grated perspective on information management. A business process perspective as well is once more completely neglected. Recapitulatory, we detect a lack of adequate methodical guidelines and decision support instruments

glected within IS research. As the recent approaches in the field point out the necessity of implement-

ing ECM and BPM in conjunction (Chambers 2007), we conclude that in particular the business proc-

ess perspective received far too little attention. Following a design science approach (Hevner et al.

2004; Simon 1996), we therefore developed an ECM implementation framework from scratch which

is mainly based on developing, analysing and re-engineering business processes. A theoretical back- ground for this perspective on ECM is provided in the following for both, BPM and ECM. Accord- Business-Alignment approach by Henderson and Venkatraman (1992).

3 THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

3.1 ECM Research Framework

the following). ECM

Research

Content

Users

Information

SystemsTechnology

Hardware

Software

StandardsProcesses

Development

DeploymentEnterprise

Figure 1. Framework for ECM Research

Research questions on the content level refer to information (primarily semantics of content), users

(and their relations to certain content objects) and - the often various - systems (in which content ob-

jects reside). The technology perspective comprises hardware, software and standards being applied abler of ECM. On the other hand, they conclude that the major focus of ECM research lies in systems rather than technologies (as an ECM system comprises a number of technologies and functionalities). The process view refers to both, process development and deployment. As mentioned in the previous specifically identify shortcomings in ECM research concerning process de-

ployment. Finally, the enterprise perspective describes the context for content management and,

therewith, especially comprises social and legal aspects (e. g. archiving times) which are relevant to all

other perspectives. Therefore, we arranged the enterprise as the background for the other perspectives

in Figure 1.

Our work is based on the perception that an implementation of ECM has to consider all of the research

perspectives introduced above. Within the scope of this paper we uphold the position that the process

perspective may serve as a means to integrate the various perspectives - according to a so called fit of

design. Evidence for this position is given by the IT-Business-Alignment approach that is illustrated in

the following section.

3.2 IT-Business-Alignment

The term "IT-Business-Alignment" refers to the mutual alignment of business and information tech- nology (IT) (Henderson and Venkatraman 1992). The IT-Business-Alignment approach is based on

the structural contingency theory (Venkatraman and Prescott 1990) which in turn is related to the clas-

sical organisational theory by Chandler (1962). Both theories coincide in their proposition that a com-

pany's business strategy determines its organisation. Moreover, the structural contingency theory indi-

cates that structural variables, for example a company's business strategy, influence the efficiency of

information systems (Weill and Olsen 1989). To demonstrate fields of application for IT-Business- Alignment, the Strategic Alignment Model is presented in the following Figure 2. Figure 2. Strategic Alignment Model (Henderson and Venkatraman 1993)

Illustrating the coherences of the structural contingency theory, the model shows that business and IT

have to be aligned on an internal as well as an external level. As a result, there are four components,

namely: Business strategy, IT strategy, organisational infrastructure and IT infrastructure (cf. Hender-

son and Venkatraman 1992, 1993; Luftman 1996). According to the structural contingency theory,

these fields have to be aligned vertically ("strategic fit") as well as horizontally ("functional integra-

tion"). Thus, strategic fit characterises the alignment between the operative and the strategic layer,

while functional integration refers to the alignment of business and IT. In conclusion, the Strategic Alignment Model demonstrates the necessity for aligning business and IT

on both, an operative and strategic level. Hence, it may serve as a theoretical foundation for imple-

menting ECM taking business processes as the origin. As presented above, further approaches in the field of ECM explicitly focus on ECM strategy development. Thus, in the following, we primarily re-

fer to the operative level (functional integration) by presenting the ECM-Blueprinting framework

which integrates both, IT-Business-Alignment and the framework for ECM research.

4 INTRODUCTION OF ECM-BLUEPRINTING

The implementation of ECM requires methodical support according to the four perspectives of the previously presented research framework for ECM. In the following Figure 3, the ECM-Blueprinting framework is illustrated. It distinguishes between different phases (symbolised by arrows), results (symbolised by rectangles) and methods (being applied within the phases). (1)

Business

Process

Analysis

(2)

Content

Type

Identification

(3)

ECMS Function

Classification(4)

ECM-

Blueprints

Adaptation(5)

Business

Process

Re-Design

Business

Processes

Content

TypesECM-

Blueprints

ECMS

Services

ECMS

Support

Figure 3. The ECM-Blueprinting Framework

According to the IT-Business-Alignment approach, the framework is mainly based on Business Proc- ess Analysis (phase 1). The processes are described by means of business process modelling (here symbolised by the Event-driven Process Chain (EPC) method; cf. Scheer and Schneider 2006). The

conceptual specification of processes primarily serves two purposes: On the one hand, different enti-

ties of content can be identified, as they are applied within the processes. On the other hand, those

processes or parts of processes that offer high potentials for improvement through ECM support can be detected (visualised by the dark coloured process elements). Next, different types of content are

identified (phase 2). Therefore, certain attributes for characterising the different content types need to

be elaborated (e. g. content format or media). Subsequently, attribute values are defined for the be-

forehand discovered content entities (e. g. format: document, media: paper). Within this phase, me- thodical support is represented by morphological boxes (Knackstedt and Klose 2005). As a result of phase 2, content objects possessing the same attribute values are combined into a common content

type. Within phase 3, different ECM systems (ECMS) are analysed with regard to their functionalities.

Functions being required to manage certain content types are assigned to ECMS services (here sym-

bolised by a functional decomposition diagram; cf. Scheer and Schneider 2006). As a result of

phase 3, functions (and therewith systems) are identified which are necessary for managing content according to a company's individual business process structure. Hence, according to an IT-Business- Alignment, the organisational infrastructure is considered before making decisions on the IT infra- structure. Subsequently, reference processes for implementing ECM are adapted according to a com-

pany's individual organisational structure (phase 4). These reference processes, called ECM-

Blueprints, consider different content types as well as ECMS services. Finally, the ECM-Blueprintsquotesdbs_dbs20.pdfusesText_26

[PDF] A Business Process Perspective on Enterprise Content - CORE

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CIS 2008 Proceedings. 252.

7,%.!(%.*!/+-#!%.

A BUSINESS PROCESS PERSPECTIVE ON

ENTERPRISE CONTENT MANAGEMENT:

TOWARDS A FRAMEWORK FOR

ORGANISATIONAL CHANGE

Switzerland, anne.cleven@unisg.ch

Abstract

1 INTRODUCTION

2003, p. 1). Acting as an important instrument for an effective knowledge management (Davenport

2 RELATED WORK

2004; Simon 1996), we therefore developed an ECM implementation framework from scratch which

3 THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

3.1 ECM Research Framework

Research

Content

Information

SystemsTechnology

Hardware

Software

StandardsProcesses

Development

DeploymentEnterprise

Figure 1. Framework for ECM Research

3.2 IT-Business-Alignment

4 INTRODUCTION OF ECM-BLUEPRINTING

Business

Process

Analysis

Content

Identification

ECMS Function

Classification(4)

Blueprints

Adaptation(5)

Business

Process

Re-Design

Business

Processes

Content

TypesECM-

Blueprints

Services

Support

Figure 3. The ECM-Blueprinting Framework

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